"Didn't you say you had a little bottle of brandy, Katy?"
"Yes; Miss Marshall told us we ought never to go on a long journey without it, and I brought it along for fear something like this might happen. Here it is."
Taking the bottle, Tug forced a few drops between Aleck's lips and saw them trickle down his throat. A minute later there was a stronger throb of the fluttering heart, a quiver of the eyelids, and a faint, sighing groan, which the anxious watchers could just hear. At this sign of returning life they rose and grasped each other's hands. The tears Katy had so bravely kept back when she had had work to do and no time to cry came now in an unrestrained shower; but they were tears of joy, for the Captain was waking up all right.
Now poor little Jim got some attention, and Katy left them to themselves while the three boys helped each other to get rid of their icy clothes and crawl into the blankets and warm straw of their bedrooms, as they called the hull of the boat. This done, Katy came back and made hot tea for her three tucked-up patients, which so revived them that Tug and Jim begged to be allowed to get up as soon as their clothes had been dried; but Aleck said he wanted to sleep two weeks, and so would stay in bed a little longer.
As for Rex, whose heroism in bringing back Aleck's floating coat, when he was unable to aid his drowning master himself, had been forgotten until now, he was content to lie in a snug corner and wait for the half-frozen fish his mistress had promised him should presently be the reward of his faithfulness.
That eventful day came to an end without anything further to disturb their peace. Aleck rose towards evening, and went out fishing with Jim and Tug, catching two or three pickerel. The night passed in unusual quiet, for the wind, though steady, was not a whistling gale, nor did the grinding roar of moving ice come to their ears, as it had sometimes during the previous daytime.
In the morning the same clouds were overhead, the same vague haze hid the horizon, the same waste of ice and water surrounded their lonely camp, the same quiet breeze breathed steadily across the lake, and, but for occasional noises of their own making, the whole world seemed profoundly still. This was depressing, and the spirits of each one of our young adventurers sank to a level with the flat ice and the dull gray sky; yet it was evident that nothing could be done except to wait as patiently as possible for some change.
"If yez can't be aisy, be as aisy as ye can," remarked Tug, quoting an excellent Irish rule of life under adverse circumstances; but the pleasantry met with only a faint smile from his disheartened companions. All thought that any active perils would be better than this motionless, objectless gloom, so threatening because so still and uncertain.
"I wonder if we haven't stopped drifting," said Katy, as they were pretending to eat a bit of luncheon, for which nobody had much appetite; and, more for the sake of doing something than because it seemed to make much difference whether they had come to a standstill or not, they took a few chips to the edge of the floe, and threw them into the water. These tossed up and down on the gentle waves, but did not change their position at all, so our navigators concluded their floe to be at last stationary.
"How far do you think we have drifted?" Jim asked his brother.